Traveller faces jail over Doncaster caravan site

Published:08:34Sunday 26 April 2015

A traveller faces arrest and imprisonment after a judge ordered he serve a jail sentence for repeatedly breaching court orders.

Edward Wilson, aged 27, had defied a court by refusing to leave restricted land in Doncaster where he had moved with his dogs and chickens – and he has now been sentenced to a prison term for his ‘contemptuous’ attitude.

London’s High Court heard Wilson – who was not in court – had defied numerous orders to move his caravan, horse boxes and kennels from land at Kirk Bramwith.

And Judge Richard Seymour QC has ordered him to serve a six-month jail term for contempt of court.

Doncaster Council took Wilson to court for his breaches of court orders.

Barrister Juan Lopez said the original order, banning residential use of the land, had been made last September.

However, when the site, known as the Riverside, in Kirkhouse Green Road, was visited days later, it was being used.

Council officers found a caravan, a car, a flatbed vehicle, three horse boxes and two dog kennels.

In addition, Wilson himself pointed out the beginnings of some work that had begun on a drainage system.

Mr Lopez said: “The stationing and/or storage of the above articles upon the land, and the associated uses of the land, amounted to unauthorised development, breaches of planning control and, in turn, a breach of the order,.

“The drainage development observed to have been carried out on the land was similarly unauthorised in planning terms, so amounting to unauthorised development and, in turn, a further breach of the order.”

He said various attempts had been made since September to get Wilson to move the articles, but he had not complied.”

Mr Lopez said: “There exist vacancies at several council-run gypsy and traveller sites where he may reside.”

Giving judgment, Judge Seymour said Wilson should be found and taken to prison.

He said: “In the circumstances of the contemptuous attitude he has taken towards the court, I think the appropriate order in relation to Wilson is he should be committed to prison for six months.”

And in a further blow, he ordered Wilson pay the council’s court costs.

He said: “The council should have its costs, to be the subject of a detailed assessment, and there should be a payment on account of those costs of £7,500, that sum to be paid within 14 days.”